Redd Kross: first aid under the tent

File Redd Kross' set in the Mojave Tent under Showing the Kids How It's Done -- or at least showing the kids it can be done when your band is older than most of the people in the tent.

The Hawthorne-bred garage-poppers performed as if they were playing festivals before there were festivals, which only seems like it's true, since the McDonald brothers have been at it since 1978. Compared with Rogue Wave's more languid (but still sunny) pop that got Coachella '08 off to a tentative start on the main stage, Redd Kross's buzzsaw licks assaulted the senses, with guitarist Robert Hecker, nattily attired in black and white but playing barefoot, shredding on his orange Ibanez custom guitar for all it was worth. Is "Switchblade Sister" really 15 years old? Sounded awful fresh in the half-full tent.

Nice touch, too, when Jemina Pearl Abegg of Be Your Own Pet crashed the set to provide some girlie shout-alongs. She's half Steve McDonald's age, but as Redd Kross' set showed, the garage rock of today and of decades past are close kin.

Photos and post by Kevin Bronson